


when reality shifts (take a breath)

by mangemouth



Category: Free!
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 15:55:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1045745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mangemouth/pseuds/mangemouth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The way Makoto says his name makes Rin think, <i>I’m so screwed,</i> because things are perfect now, and change hasn’t been kind to him before.</p>
            </blockquote>





	when reality shifts (take a breath)

Makoto asks him if he’s tired, and he says _no,_ because he is, but that doesn’t mean Rin wants to talk about it.

He leans against his shoulder anyway.

 

Graduation is fast approaching, and things have been a whirlwind of highs and greater-highs, of Nagisa’s laughter at the most inappropriate times, of Mikoshiba’s increasingly suicidal advances on his sister, of swimming being the thing he lives to do again.

Things are good, _amazing_ even, but change is coming; Rin smells it like blood in the water (he has a fine tuned nose; he’s been the one bleeding out before).

 

Rei’s the only one who knows, about him and Makoto that is, for some reason. Surprising everyone, Rin and Rei have become pretty close, and it’s a rare week that Rin doesn’t spend some time with just Rei, in the pool or at his dorm. It’s not so surprising to Rin; they both like math, they both occasionally want to strangle Nagisa, and they both like the idea that things, people, can be become anything they want to, if they work hard and feel every moment.

Rin is still so grateful for what Rei did in the relay that every once in a while, he gets teary-eyed about it, and Rei pretends to sharpen his pencils to aesthetically pleasing lengths until he’s done being a crybaby. Rin laughs at his efforts after the fact, because he’s still kind of an asshole.

( _It’s basically just an eraser now, you can’t even write with that,_ Rin wheezes, but he’s thinking _you saved my life_ and the tears become happy ones.)

For all their closeness, he doesn’t mean to tell Rei, he doesn’t mean to tell anyone, because he’s just gotten his life back together and the last goddamn thing he wants to do is ruin things ( _again_ ).

 _I figured it would be Haru,_ is what he blurts idiotically at the end of a messy, confused confession, because Tachibana Makoto is a boy of quiet smiles and sleepy eyes, yes, but also endless mirrors and walls, and Rin is so tired of seeing himself run headfirst into unforgiving planes. _It should have been Haru, right?_

 _But it’s not,_ Rei shrugs, and in true Ryuugazaki fashion, that is that. Haru is a lot of things to Rin; a standard, a best friend, a rival, the person he wants to swim for and who wants to swim for him. Haru makes him passionate for swimming, for winning, for running after his dream ( _his_ dream) until his lungs give out.

But Haru’s just not the one whose laughter regularly makes his nervous system freak out like he’s having some kind of heat stroke slash epileptic episode. Haru’s not the one that Rin wants to climb out of the water and share a conspiring grin with, razor sharp to summer glaze. Haru’s not the one Rin thinks about when the lights are off and he’s praying to any deity that’s listening that Nitori really is _fucking asleep._ Haru’s not the one who causes a startled _oh shit_ to echo in his head every time he says his damn name.

Okay, that’s fucking corny, but it’s the _way_ he says it, like he’s holding a worn gift that’s still been carefully wrapped. Nagisa whoops his name like a battle cry, Rei asserts his name like a natural law, Haru says his name like his own, but the way Makoto says his name –

The way Makoto says his name makes Rin think, _I’m so screwed,_ because things are perfect now, and change hasn’t been kind to him before.

 

They do a lot of talking about their post-graduation plans, lately, mostly because Rin can’t stop talking about the American trainer that’s shown interest in taking him on once he (and Haru and Makoto) graduates. It makes Rin so nervous and excited to think about starting his Olympic training that he usually ends up goading Haru into the pool right after yet another long diatribe about his upcoming American adventure.

Nagisa, to whom graduation the following year is more like a prayer and a wish than a certainty, gets swept up easily in the excitement, and decides he wants to be something new nearly every time he changes his shirt. Two days ago it was a lumberjack, yesterday it was an actor. Today, it’s a police detective.

 _You’re going to end up committing crimes, not solving them,_ Rin tells him, leaning on the concrete edge of the pool. _Oi, they don’t accept evil masterminds in the police._

 _Rin-chan!_ Nagisa pouts, _That shows what you know. Evil masterminds make the **best** police!_

He may have a point.

Rin isn’t worried about Nagisa; like a balloon, he’ll float, buoyed on his own exuberance, like he always does, until he finds the right place to land. Rin knows it’s true; Nagisa will be fine.

 

Rei is mostly stressed about life after graduation. Although he’s graduating with Nagisa and Gou, he’s already trying to get into Japan’s top schools, constantly writing applications and reading pamphlets and waiting at his mailbox for the post. Rin helps him study, but also doesn’t; even people who believe in perfection need a break sometimes. He’s happy to distract, because Rin loves swimming more than anything, but it’s not just about swimming, anymore, and it’s because of Rei that Haru could show him that.

Of course, Rei’s still a little too rigid, and little too hard to budge, sometimes.

 _I can’t believe you brought your applications to the beach,_ Rin snorts, soaking up the rays.

 _I honestly can’t either,_ Rei replies, with resignation. He flips a starfish off the latest pamphlet advertising Diversity, Fortitude, and Educational Preeminence. _I likely should have known that Nagisa would think it was a good idea to try and send ‘live sushi’ as a bribe._

It’s a joke twice over; Rei won’t need bribes to get in anywhere, when the time comes. He’s a textbook rising star – one of Japan’s finest in most senses of the word. Rin knows it’s true; Rei will be beautiful.

 

As far as those of them actually graduating this year – of course, he and Haru have a fight, a real one, sort of about the Olympics, but mostly about Rin and Haru (it’s still usually mostly about Rin and Haru).

  
Haru, who has always had everything Rin has ever wanted but for some god damn reason wanted Rin instead, should be going to train with him. He should be going to the Olympics with him. But Haru flatly tells him _I never cared about winning_ and _I never cared about the Olympics_ and Rin wants to punch him in the throat for being such a fucking waste of talent until Haru adds, in a softer tone and with a surprisingly sweaty touch to his forehead, _Rin, you’ll be okay._

Rin would like to think the tears came because he gets so fucking frustrated at Haru’s complete lack of drive, and not because he’s scared to go into the real world of competitive swimming without the person that makes him love it. Not because he’s worried it’ll be like Australia all over again, where the water didn’t want him, and where he didn’t want anything to do with himself, either.

Haru also calls him stupid, a bit later, when Rin is wiping his eyes and saying things like _shut up, Nanase, just get in the water,_ and honestly he kind of agrees with Haru’s verdict. Rin knows it’s true; Haru will always be there for him.

 

Makoto’s the only one who acts unexpectedly, really.

 _I want to travel abroad after graduation,_ Makoto tells he and Haru, and Haru’s eyebrows shoot up into his hairline while Rin chokes on his shaved ice and starts coughing. Makoto’s eyes, hidden behind plain brown frames, never leave the video game screen. Tachibana Makoto is a boy of walls and mirrors, and today, surprises.

Haru asks where, and Makoto shrugs sheepishly, says he doesn’t know yet. Rin asks how, and he says he’ll figure it out, somehow, maybe with student grants or something. Haru asks when, and Makoto blows some air through his lips, and says he’s not sure, but soon. Soon.

Rin doesn’t get up the courage to ask _why_ until they’re away from flickering lights and sounds, until they’ve left Haru behind, a blue boy in a blue house silhouetted by the darkening blue sky. Makoto insists on walking him back to Samezuka, even though it’s kind of far, and he’s not obsessive about his leg muscle training like Rin is.

(To be fair, no one is obsessive about his leg muscle training like Rin is.)

They talk, but Rin’s not interested in what hilarious antics Ren-chan and Ran-chan got up to at school today, or what Makoto’s theories are on the end-game of _Dungeon Demons IV: The Pharaoh’s Curse._ They talk, and Rin is mostly stormy and silent until he asks _why._

 _I need a change,_ is what Makoto says, sure, but a bit sad, too. It’s nothing like the vague answers from before, all certainty and direction. Rin knows he’s going to leave, one way or another, in that moment. _Haha, don’t get me wrong! It’s been great here, with you guys! And especially with you back again, and everything, Rin, but I need to…_

Makoto struggles for words, and Rin thinks about the way that Makoto always stops, right before he says something about himself, just himself. _…I need to be someone else, now. I think._ He tries to play the moment off, like he always does, too. _Haha, sorry. Does that sound strange?_

 _No,_ says Rin, because he’s felt like that twice before. But he doesn’t know what else to say about it, and they walk the rest of the way to Samezuka in relative silence.

When he’s turning to walk through Samezuka’s imposing gate, he wants to say, _I hope you find yourself_. Instead, he says _My sister uh, my sister thinks she forgot her hair clip in the club room, the stupid orange cicada one, she wants to know if you can look for it before homeroom tomorrow._

Makoto smiles his easy summer glaze smile and agrees. Rin turns, waves over his shoulder, and rends his bottom lip apart with razor sharp precision.

 

He’s carried his body confidently since Australia. Puberty, like everything else, had been a race between the shiver of growing shark-boys. Like everything else, Rin had mostly lost that race for the longest time – he could never compete with the locals and the transplants from further west, all of whom towered over him and laughed at his hairless armpits and heavy accent. He couldn’t catch a break, or a single moment of self-assurance; if he grew an inch, someone else grew five. If his voice deepened, someone else’s plunged. If his muscles got stronger, someone else got him in a headlock.

It didn’t matter that he’d always catch up, that his shoulders would widen and his gait would lengthen after the fact. If it wasn’t done quickly, if it wasn’t done _first,_ it might as well not have been done at all.

The first year in Australia, Rin couldn’t manage to learn the language quickly enough, couldn’t keep up with the laughter and swim in the constant flow of words, so he stopped trying to talk.

 _Fuck them all,_ he’d thought when he returned to Japan for good. He walked tall, he walked broad, and most importantly he swam _strong_ ; in the end, he took pride that he’d grown teeth in the silence.

He sees now, how stupid that confidence was, how pointless. He feels more confident than years of hardening mistranslation and two hundred trips to the weight room could make him, when Makoto bumps their shoulders together and grins goofily and says shit like _I’m glad you made it today – Rin._

And in those moments, when his mouth is clumsy and rough, he thinks it’s too bad he’d never learned to speak around those killer teeth of his.

 

 _Shit,_ Haru grumbles at his favorite pair of swim trunks, now shrunk down to toddler size. Makoto has confessed with an air of incredulity that even he can’t tell Haru’s swimsuits apart; Rin had laughed and agreed, but he’s depressed to admit to himself that he actually can. Maybe he really does spend too much time in the pool with Haru.

(Maybe he spends too much time looking at other guys’ legs in swimsuits – and just because he’s swimming _that_ race pretty fucking slowly doesn’t mean he’s coming in last, though he has a really sinking feeling his sister might be placing first).

 _And how long have you been living on your own,_ Rin tosses back, flipping through a take-out menu on the floor. It’s just the two of them, and the house is quiet. It’s not a bad quiet, especially compared to the constant chatter and noise of Samezuka.

Haru doesn’t respond, because he can still be a childish little shit when he feels like it. Rin guesses he chucked them in the dryer instead of hanging them on the line so that they’d dry faster, and thus he could get back in the water faster. He’s been spending more time in the pool as graduation approaches; at one time, it might have been a sign of the old Haruka, who’d floated through Rin’s absence, the one that submerged when he should have engaged.

This time, the eagerness to get in the water is probably because they’ve all been trying to spend more time together, and the pool is their most beloved meeting ground. It’s also the most neutral – getting Rei and Nagisa to agree on locations and times to hang out was like pulling several teeth in a row, blindfolded, and with only a crazy straw as a tool. Makoto never actually wanted to disagree with anyone’s choices and was thus indecisive when there was more than one opinion, which there always was. Rin and Haru, at least, were consistent in that they both usually stubbornly wanted to be in the pool anyway.

 _Oi, where’s Makoto today?_ Rin asks, as if he doesn’t feel like he’s running out of time.

 _Family stuff,_ Haru shrugs, not offering more information. It’s only after they’ve both placed their orders at the curry place a few blocks over ( _mackerel curry isn’t a goddamn thing!_ ) and Rin has stopped sulking over losing the impromptu soccer game in the backyard that Haru adds, _I think he booked his flight._

Rin gets overly irritated that he ordered green curry, but Haru won’t switch with him.

 

That night, he thinks a lot about the day by the cherry tree, where he’d made promises to Haru while Makoto faded to white noise. He wonders if green isn’t just the color of a hazy summer, but jealousy and camouflage, too. He wonders why Makoto’s never angry, never sad, in front of the people he loves. He wonders why Makoto hadn’t yelled at his friends more when he probably should have, why Makoto feels like he needs to leave the friends he’s lived for like Rin lives for swimming. He wonders what goal is important enough to risk becoming someone you’re not, just so you’re somebody at all.

He wonders if Makoto thinks about the color red and if his teeth are as sharp as they look, or not really.

 _Matsuoka-senpai looks very serious,_ Nitori remarks genially, from behind a pile of total bullshit on his desk.

 _Call me Rin, already,_ he urges the other boy, because he’s tired of imposing distance on himself.

(Walls and mirrors, walls and mirrors – it’s one thing to be tired of running headfirst into hard planes; it’s another to let somebody get trapped behind them.)

Rin sits up so quickly he smashes his head on the bottom of Nitori’s bunk, and the amount of fuss the younger boy makes has Mikoshiba slamming open the door, wondering loudly about which one of them finally snapped and killed the other.

(His money had been on Nitori, Rin finds out later.)

 

There’s a moment, right before you dive. Rei and he have talked a lot about it, while Makoto tries to get Nagisa to stop teasing Gou and Haru floats on his back in the pool like an unconcerned leaf in a big puddle. But it’s a moment that they’ve both agreed – Rei coming new to the sport and Rin being raised in it – is utterly terrifying.

It’s the moment you feel reality shift, slightly. Your muscles tense beneath you, and your mind can’t process anything but the impending action, and the chain of actions to come after. It’s the moment before change, and it doesn’t matter how much you’ve trained, how much theory you’ve read, how many times you’ve stayed up late to watch the pros, if you don’t shift when reality does, breathe in when your heart tells you to, you’ll be left coughing up water.

Rei had a name for the moment, and it was precise and appropriate and charmingly pretentious, like Rei. Rin can’t remember it now, but then, he’s already too caught up in it.

Rin breathes in when his heart tells him to, and jumps.

 

 _Rin, are – are you alright? Is this a… a boy’s boarding school thing?_ Makoto asks him, more a bit bewildered. He has the right to be, since Rin’s just kissed him so hard he’s left awful, angry teeth marks _ruining_ the curve of Makoto’s gentle, summer-glaze smile.

 _If you’re implying that I ever let Nitori stick his fucking tongue down my throat,_ Rin barks back, feeling raw and frustrated and young and stupid – basically, feeling like Rin, _I’m seriously going to punch you, and then punch myself, and then punch Nagisa for the hell of it –_

 _Take it easy, Rin,_ Makoto laughs, oh _god,_ he’s laughing, but at least he’s not giving him a pained smile or a kick in the balls. _I didn’t mean to imply that. Mikoshiba seems more like your type, to be honest._

 _What the hell would you know about my type?_ Rin hears the fucking tears threatening in his strung-out voice, and is incredulous at their existence. He is incredulous at his own existence. This isn’t romantic, this is traumatic.

 _A lot,_ Makoto replies, steady on as ever. _Since it looks like I’m it._

 

Makoto tries to smile a gentle summer-glaze smile, but it’s all chewed up by a boy who’s a shark in the water and a wreck on land. It looks a little devious, now. It looks different.

Rin finds that this time, this time, change is not so bad.

 

It’s a really messy conversation, but that’s to be expected.

“I thought it was going to be you and Haru,” Makoto confesses, and Rin rolls his eyes and says “I did too, but he’s an asshole who can’t even wash his own swimsuits,” and Makoto looks relieved and amused and they laugh for the next while, agreeing that high school romance is really, really overrated.

“I’m sorry it took so long,” Rin apologizes, and Makoto shrugs and ponders richly, “What’s new, we’re always waiting on our Rin-Rin,” and Rin flushes the color of a candy apple and pushes at Makoto’s smirking face, and they kiss and stroke one another’s skin for the next while, painfully careful because of the sharpness of teeth and the sharpness of feeling exposed.

“I felt like you didn’t really see me, that is, I think,” stutters Makoto, his summer glaze all cracked and flaking around the edges. “I didn’t,” Rin cuts him off, because it’s the painful truth that his vision had been chiseled down to competition, and Haru was the only competitor, “but I do now,” and Makoto looks a little wary and a little overwhelmed and they don’t talk for a while, but stay tangled together on Makoto’s bed.

“I didn’t want you to go without telling you, I guess, but maybe it doesn’t matter now,” Rin admits a bit wryly, bracing himself for the resignation that this has to end before it starts. “Yeah, about that,” is what Makoto says, and then when he doesn’t follow it up Rin jumps on top of him and wrestles him for a while like they are 12 years old and the world is too bright.

“I decided on America,” is the most important thing Makoto tells him. He hadn’t told him, because he hadn’t been sure he should, since they were supposed to growing apart, since he’d wanted to find himself.

Rin finds it hard to believe he wouldn’t have found Makoto first, even in a big place like New York, because they had always found one another eventually. He knows it’s a bad idea, maybe, to want to bet so much on the clumsy passion of youthful romance, but he’s never denied being a romantic. “I could help you with your English, we could live together, my trainer says that – ”

“Rin, I really don’t care what your fancy American trainer says, shut up and let me kiss you,” kind sweet gentle Makoto tells him not kindly, sweetly, nor gently, because he is already changing, because they are changing together, and Rin’s okay with that.

 

It’s a messy conversation, so they end up talking all night.

In the end, Makoto asks him if he’s tired, and he says _no,_ because he is, but Makoto’s hands sink into his hair, and Rin thinks maybe some changes don’t have to be talked about.

He smiles against his shoulder anyway.


End file.
